Text 33
tataḥ samādhāya mano manīṣayā
babhāṣa etat pratilabdha-vāg asau
niyamya sarvendriya-bāhya-vartanaṁ
jagad-guruṁ sātvata-śāstra-vigraham
tataḥ — thereafter; samādhāya — controlling; manaḥ — the mind; manīṣayā — by his intelligence; babhāṣa — spoke; etat — this; pratilabdha — recovering; vāk — speech; asau — that one (King Citraketu); niyamya — controlling; sarva-indriya — of all the senses; bāhya — external; vartanam — the wandering; jagat-gurum — who is the spiritual master of everyone; sātvata — of devotional service; śāstra — of the holy scriptures; vigraham — the personified form.
Thereafter, by controlling his mind with his intelligence and thus restricting his senses from external engagements, he recovered suitable words with which to express his feelings. Thus he began offering prayers to the Lord, who is the personification of the holy scriptures [the sātvata-saṁhitās like the Brahma-saṁhitā and the Nārada-pañcarātra] and who is the spiritual master of all. He offered his prayers as follows.
One cannot offer prayers to the Lord with mundane words. One must become spiritually advanced by controlling the mind and senses. Then he can find suitable words to offer in prayers to the Lord. Quoting the following verse from the Padma Purāṇa, Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī forbids us to sing any song not sung by authorized devotees.
avaiṣṇava-mukhodgīrṇaṁ
pūtaṁ hari-kathāmṛtam
śravaṇaṁ naiva kartavyaṁ
sarpocchiṣṭaṁ yathā payaḥ
The words or songs of a person not fixed in Vaiṣṇava behavior, not strictly following the rules and regulations and chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra should not be accepted by pure devotees. The words sātvata-śāstra-vigraham indicate that the sac-cid-ānanda body of the Lord can never be accepted to be made of māyā. Devotees do not offer prayers to the Lord in an imaginary form. The existence of the Lord’s form is supported by all Vedic literature.